The Small Wave.

Universal’s had so many bad ideas on ways to hawk music it’s hard to keep up with them all. Still, I’ve tried.

Now one of their brilliant schemes — Total Disaster (a.k.a. Total Music) — is facing scrutiny from the Department of Justice.

Personally, I think Total Music is, well, a disaster. Still, I’m glad Universal’s moves are attracting some attention.

A good article on The Lefsetz Letter about the Stones deal with EMI. One portion of the article makes it clear that Mr. Lefsetz is as fond of Universal’s Doug Morris as I am:

Doug Morris is waiting for Congress to approve blowing up traders’ computers, possibly lynching them in the town square, he thinks he can beat this thing, he believes the good old days are just around the corner.

Too true.

Let’s face it, next week we’ll all be discussing Macworld news, so I thought I’d review some tech headlines from the last few days and get them out of my system before the real fun begins next week…

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So the net is abuzz with the story that Warner Music will sell DRM-free music through Amazon.

Numerous headlines call it a coup for Amazon, saying they beat Apple to the punch. And many are proclaiming it as a change of heart for Warner. It’s neither.

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More tech headlines to chew over, with my comments…

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Yesterday I wrote about Universal CEO Doug Morris and how he claims all the mistakes the major labels have made (and are making) in regards to digital downloads are only because they “just didn’t know what to do”.

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I’ve written numerous posts about Universal’s stupidity regarding their moves in relation to digital downloads and sales. Not only their actions to prop up the unworkable music subscription model, but also those designed to damage Apple’s iTunes store even at the expense of selling more of Universal’s own product.

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A couple months ago I wrote about yet another subscription model which, naturally, Universal was backing. Well, let’s see how the Spiral Frog effort is doing, shall we? Well, Read/Write web says this:

“SprialFrog, the big music industry’s experiment with free music downloads, is bleeding money and considering hiring bloggers to improve their public profile.”

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Let’s face it, the big news for Apple is next week with their quarterly earning call on Monday and Leopard release on Friday. Still, there was a lot of interesting stuff this week to comment on…

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BusinessWeek published a story about yet another move Universal is taking against Apple. Before we get to their latest, let’s review the recent shots Universal has fired:

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